Last updated: August 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. Tutor counts, rates and course availability verified directly against each provider’s own pages on 9 August 2026; study-time figures from the US Foreign Service Institute. See our review methodology.
QUICK ANSWER
What is the best app to learn Korean? LingoDeer if you want one structured beginner app, because it was built for Korean rather than adapted to it. But learn Hangul first — it takes a few hours, not months, and everything else gets easier once you can read.
- Best free course: Talk To Me In Korean — the standard recommendation for a reason
- Best for speaking: Pimsleur Korean, 5 levels, first week free
- Best for real conversation: a tutor. Preply lists 3,413 Korean teachers
- Do not buy: Babbel or Lingoda. Neither teaches Korean at all
Korean sets a trap for new learners, and it is worth naming before you spend anything. The writing system looks intimidating and is actually the easiest part. The grammar looks manageable and is actually where the years go.
Get that the wrong way round and you will spend three weeks on flashcard apps for Hangul, feel enormously productive, and then stall the moment sentences start having honorifics in them. This guide is ordered to avoid that.
What each option covers, and what it costs
Before you spend money on the wrong online course, read this.
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| Option | Best for | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Talk To Me In Korean | Structured grammar, beginner to advanced | Extensive free tier; paid books and courses |
| LingoDeer | One structured beginner app | Subscription |
| Pimsleur | Speaking and listening, hands-free | Subscription; first week free |
| Preply / italki | Real conversation and correction | From $3/hr; natives average $29 |
| AI practice apps | Low-stakes speaking reps | Free tiers, paid upgrades |
| Anki | Vocabulary, cheaply | Free on desktop and Android |
| Duolingo | Hangul, then habit only | Free core app |
Hangul is the easy part — do it this week
Korean’s alphabet was deliberately designed in the fifteenth century to be learnable by ordinary people quickly, and it shows. It is a genuine alphabet of 24 basic letters, the shapes are systematic, and the consonant forms are loosely modelled on the position of your mouth when you say them. Most people can read Hangul slowly after a few hours and comfortably within a week or two.
This is the single biggest difference between starting Korean and starting Japanese, where the writing system is a multi-year project in itself. If you have been putting Korean off because of the script, you have been avoiding the wrong obstacle.
Practical advice: do not buy anything for this. Free charts, Duolingo’s first section, or an hour of YouTube will get you there. Then stop using romanisation entirely — every week you keep reading Korean in Latin letters is a week of pronunciation habits you will have to unlearn.
Talk To Me In Korean — the standard recommendation
If you ask experienced Korean learners what to use, TTMIK comes up more than anything else. It is a full curriculum from absolute beginner upward, with a very large free lesson archive plus paid books and courses, and its explanations of the grammar that actually trips people up — particles, verb endings, speech levels — are unusually clear.
It is also the answer to the honorifics problem. Korean encodes social relationship into verb endings, so the “same” sentence changes shape depending on who you are talking to. General-purpose apps tend to teach one register and leave you to discover the rest by embarrassment. TTMIK teaches it as a system.
Where it falls short: it is a course, not an app — there is no gamification and nothing chasing you to show up. We have no affiliate relationship with TTMIK and earn nothing if you use it. It is first here because it is the best answer.
LingoDeer — the best single app for Korean
If you want one app with a path to follow, LingoDeer is the pick. It was built specifically for Korean, Japanese and Chinese rather than being a European-language engine with Korean bolted on, and the difference shows in the grammar notes attached to each lesson.
That structural point matters more than any feature list. The reason most mainstream apps disappoint Korean learners is that their teaching model assumes word order and grammar broadly like English. Korean is subject-object-verb with particles marking role, so an app that never explains particles leaves you guessing. LingoDeer explains them.
Where it falls short: it runs out. It is strong through beginner and lower-intermediate and then you need TTMIK, native material and a tutor. We earn nothing from LingoDeer either.
Pimsleur Korean — for getting the sounds right early
Pimsleur offers a full Korean programme: 5 levels of 30 conversational lessons each, plus around 100 reading lessons — roughly 150 in total. Lessons are audio-first and 30 minutes, designed to be done hands-free while commuting or cooking.
Its value for Korean is specific: it drills you into producing spoken sentences with correct rhythm from the first lesson, at a stage when most learners are silently reading. Korean has consonant distinctions that English speakers routinely flatten, and hearing-then-producing under prompting is a better fix than reading about them. Pimsleur states your first week is free.
Where it falls short: narrow by design, and expensive relative to what it covers. It is the speaking leg, not the course.
Preply and italki — the part that actually moves you
Preply lists 3,413 Korean teachers, with lessons ranging from about $3 to $40+ an hour. italki covers the same need without a subscription, splitting teachers into qualified Professional Teachers and cheaper Community Tutors.
THE NATIVE PREMIUM IS LARGEST HERE
On Preply, native Korean speakers average $29 an hour against $22 for non-native speakers — about a 32% gap, the widest of any language we have checked. Compare English, where the two averages are $25 and $24 and the premium is effectively nil. For Korean the premium is usually worth paying, because speech levels and natural phrasing are exactly what a non-native teacher is least likely to model reliably.
Know Preply’s billing before committing: it is a subscription charged every 28 days, tied to one tutor, with a four-lesson minimum, and unscheduled lessons expire at renewal. Trial lessons are paid. See our Preply cost guide, or Preply vs italki to choose between them.
AI practice, Anki and Duolingo
AI conversation apps are genuinely useful for Korean, because the fear of using the wrong speech level keeps people silent for months. An AI partner lets you get that wrong repeatedly at no social cost. LingChat covers 60+ languages including Korean, with a free tier and paid upgrades; we are not quoting a price because its published plans currently disagree across sources, so check in-app.
Anki is free on desktop and on Android via AnkiDroid, with the official iOS app paid. For Korean it is the cheapest way to hold vocabulary, especially sentences mined from shows you are already watching.
Duolingo has a Korean course and a real free tier. Use it for Hangul in week one and as a streak-keeper afterwards. Its Korean course thins out quickly and it will not teach you speech levels properly. We earn nothing from Anki or Duolingo.
Babbel and Lingoda do not teach Korean
Worth stating plainly, because both are heavily advertised and people reasonably assume they cover everything. Babbel does not offer a Korean course. Its catalogue is fourteen mostly-European languages — Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, Norwegian, Danish, Indonesian, Russian and English.
Lingoda does not teach Korean either — its live classes cover German, French, English, Spanish, Business English and Italian only.
Both are partners of ours and we rate them well for the languages they do teach — see our Babbel cost guide and Lingoda cost guide. For Korean, neither is an option, and no amount of commission would make it worth telling you otherwise.
How long Korean actually takes
Here is where the easy alphabet stops being a comfort. The US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute places Korean in Category IV — its “super-hard” group for English speakers, alongside Arabic, Chinese and Japanese — and allots 88 weeks, or 2,200 class hours, to reach professional speaking and listening proficiency.
That is the same allocation FSI gives Japanese, and roughly three times what it gives Spanish at 30 weeks. The script is not what makes Korean hard. Word order, particles, speech levels and a vocabulary that shares almost nothing with English are what make it hard.
Read that as a planning number, not a discouragement. It tells you to choose tools you can sustain for years, and to add a tutor earlier than feels comfortable, because 2,200 hours of solo app time is not a realistic path for anyone.
A realistic first six months
Week 1 — Hangul, and nothing else. Learn the alphabet before you spend a cent. Drop romanisation the moment you can sound words out, even while it is slow.
Months 1–3 — one structured source. LingoDeer if you want an app that paces you, TTMIK if you prefer a taught course. Do not run both; pick one and finish the beginner track. Add Pimsleur if you have commuting time, because speaking early is what stops the silent-learner trap.
Months 4–6 — add a person and start listening to real Korean. One tutor lesson a week, ideally a native speaker given how much of Korean is register and phrasing. Start watching Korean shows without leaning on subtitles the whole time. Keep the vocabulary habit going in Anki. This is the point where most people quit, and also the point where it starts working.
Frequently asked questions
Does Babbel teach Korean?
No. Babbel offers fourteen languages, mostly European, and Korean is not among them. Lingoda does not teach Korean either. For a structured beginner app built for Korean specifically, LingoDeer is the closest equivalent.
How long does it take to learn Hangul?
A few hours to read slowly, and a week or two to read comfortably. It is a true alphabet of 24 basic letters designed for fast learning, which makes it far quicker than the Japanese writing systems. Do it before buying any course.
How long does it take to learn Korean?
The Foreign Service Institute allots 88 weeks, or 2,200 class hours, placing Korean in its hardest category for English speakers — the same as Japanese, and about three times Spanish. The alphabet is easy; the grammar, honorifics and vocabulary are not.
How much does a Korean tutor cost?
On Preply, Korean lessons run from about $3 to $40+ an hour, with native speakers averaging $29 and non-native speakers $22. italki is broadly comparable, with community tutors cheaper than qualified professional teachers.
Is Duolingo good for Korean?
It is good for learning Hangul in the first week and for keeping a daily habit. It is weak on the things that actually make Korean difficult, particularly particles and speech levels, so treat it as a supplement rather than your main course.
Can I learn Korean from K-dramas?
Not on their own, but they are excellent alongside a structured source once you have basic grammar. The catch is register: drama dialogue leans on casual and dramatic speech, so you can pick up phrasing that sounds odd or rude in ordinary conversation. Pair it with a course and a tutor who will tell you.
The verdict
Learn Hangul this week for free. Then pick one structured source — LingoDeer for an app, Talk To Me In Korean for a course — and stay with it through the beginner track. Add Pimsleur if you have commuting time, and a Preply or italki tutor by month four, budgeting for a native speaker at around $29 an hour.
Skip Babbel and Lingoda for this language entirely. And plan for years rather than months — the alphabet takes an afternoon, but FSI’s 2,200 hours are for everything that comes after it.
RELATED GUIDES
- Best language learning apps and platforms — the full cross-language ranking
- Best apps to learn Chinese — tones, characters, and the two-track stack
- Best apps to learn Italian — the fast-start language and its A2 wall
- Best apps to learn Japanese — the other Category IV language
- Best apps to learn French — and the listening gap that stops most learners
- Preply cost — real rates and how the 28-day billing works
- Preply vs italki — the two tutor marketplaces compared
- Best apps to learn Spanish — the same guide for Spanish
- Best apps to learn English — the same guide for English